BEDTIME PHONE CHAT REVELATIONS COULD PUT PRINCE'S HOPES ON HOLD

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 14, 1993                   TAG: 9301140173
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-12   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: LONDON                                LENGTH: Medium
BEDTIME PHONE CHAT REVELATIONS COULD PUT PRINCE'S HOPES ON HOLD
The widespread publication of an intimate telephone conversation reportedly between Britain's Prince Charles and a married female friend raised doubts in political and editorial circles Wednesday that he will ever be king.
Several newspapers and experts on the monarchy questioned whether the reputation of the prince of Wales and heir to the throne could survive the published text of a six-minute tape that suggests a longtime affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles, the wife of a good friend of 20 years.
At the same time, the revelation that Charles' estranged wife, Princess Diana, had been involved in leaking her side of their marital rift to newspapers added to the serious question of whether she would ever become queen.
The full text of an alleged bugged bedtime phone conversation between Charles, 44, and Parker-Bowles, 45, was printed by an Australian magazine and a German tabloid, and other foreign publications said they planned to publish a detailed transcript.
Wednesday, British tabloids ran only excerpts of the conversation, which has not been repudiated by Buckingham Palace; editors said more explicit portions were voluntarily omitted from their stories.
The tape, dubbed "Camillagate" by the press, suggested the reported sexual intimacy between the prince and Parker-Bowles is long-standing. Parker-Bowles is married to Brigadier Andrew Parker-Bowles, a military aide to Queen Elizabeth II. The Parker-Bowleses have two children.
Some editorialists said the tape indicated that Charles had been cheating on Diana throughout their 11-year marriage. There have been extensive reports that the princess suspected the affair and that it was the main factor leading to their separation, which was announced late last year.
In the tape, the couple expressed their passionate love for one another, used ribald language to reflect that passion and spoke of seeking country houses of close friends where they could secretly rendezvous.
The conversation, supposedly between Parker-Bowles at home and Charles, who was spending the night at the country house of a friend, was said to have been recorded by an amateur radio buff who picked it up on high-tech scanning equipment in December 1989.
It remains a mystery how the copies of the tape became widely circulated among the media. The recording came to light within a month of two other tapes, one reputedly of a call from a mobile car phone between Diana and a close friend, James Gilbey, in which they exchanged endearments; the other was between the duke of York, Charles' brother, and his now-estranged wife, the duchess, the former Sarah Ferguson.
The coincidence of that timing, and the apparently high quality of the recording, raised the possibility that British internal intelligence agencies may have been involved in taping the original conversations and, for reasons unknown, leaking them to the press.
The charge, if substantiated, would deeply embarrass the government of Prime Minister John Major. The government already is under fire for commissioning a report, to be officially presented today, that calls for strict new curbs on newspaper reporting, especially of the royal family and political figures. Under the proposed new rules, stories of the "Camillagate" variety would be prohibited.
In its story Wednesday, the Sun headlined: "Six-Minute Love Tape Could Cost Charles Throne."
If Charles were to renounce the throne, his son William, now 10, would succeed his grandmother, the queen, to the throne.
However, Harold Brooks-Baker, an expert on the royal family and the peerage, said: "If the royal family and the prince of Wales continue to hide their collective head in the sand, there will be no monarchy in a few years' time. They are paying for arrogance and they are paying for duplicity. A republic is already at the back door."

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB